Why Being a ‘Black Sheep’ Is a Bad Thing, and Other Ag-Idioms Explained

Thanks, Modern Farmer, for explaining farm idioms like “the black sheep of the family,” “get your goat,” and “bring home the bacon.” Christine Ammer, author of The American Heritage Dictionary of Idioms, reports that the expression is “based on the idea that black sheep were less valuable than white ones because it was more difficult to dye their wool different colors. And in the 1500s the color black was considered the devil’s mark. But by the 1700s the term was widely used as it is today, for the odd person in the group.” Here’s some other stuff we loved today: